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Canadian-born Ananda Marchildon, a former winner of the television show Holland’s Next Top Model, won a lawsuit Wednesday against the modelling agency that fired her because her hips were two centimetres too big.

“I’ve had such fantastic support from people on the Internet and media,” says Marchildon, 25, from her home in Zaandam, outside Amsterdam. “I’m starting to feel much better every day about my butt,” she adds with a laugh.

“I’m starting to feel much better every day about my butt,” Ananda Marchildon joked from her home outside Amsterdam.

“There’s nothing wrong with my hip size,” says Ananda Marchildon. “If you’re not a size 0, it’s not the end of the world. It’s better to have a little more meat on your bones than nothing but skin.”

When the 180-centimetre-tall (five-foot, 11-inch) brunette won the television contest and signed with the modelling agency, her hips measured 92 centimetres (36.2 inches). After gaining, then losing, weight, she was back to 92 centimetres but her agency, Elite Model Management, insisted she needed 90-centimetre hips (35.4 inches) — roughly a size 2.

In the skin-and-bones world of high-fashion models, the demand for hardly-there hips is not unusual.

At Spot 6 Management, a Toronto modelling agency, director Cynthia Cully says 92-centimetre hips might be a bit big for runway models, although it depends on the proportions.

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For Toronto’s Fashion Week, which starts Monday, she booked a model with 92-centimetre hips who is the same height as Marchildon.

It’s the designers, not the modelling agencies, who set the standards, explains Brandon Hall, an agent at Sutherland Models in Toronto. Hips measuring 92 centimetres may not fit a designer’s criteria for a runway model, he says.

“It’s sad. A girl can be stunning but not considered thin enough,” says Hall. “At the last two shows of the season, the girls were thinner and thinner.”

His agency has young women with hips larger than that who find plenty of work doing commercials.

Marchildon has no desire to return to any kind of modelling. She’s studying to be a custom furniture maker. “They liked me enough to let me win the contest but that doesn’t mean it’s my calling,” she says.

When she won the television contest in 2008, her prize was a three-year contract worth more than $98,000. In her court case, she argued that she was dismissed in 2010 after only $13,122 worth of work. The court awarded her the difference, about $85,000, plus interest and legal fees.

“It was such fantastic news. I couldn’t believe my ears,” says Marchildon, who was busy building cabinets when she heard. She has no immediate plans for the money.

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Marchildon, whose mother is Dutch and father Canadian, lived in Hull, Que., until she was 10 years old when the family moved to the Netherlands. She never dreamed about being a model, although she was once approached by an agent on the street. She entered the television contest as a bit of a lark.

She’s proud to be a role model for young girls, and she posed on Monday in an ad for Sloggi underwear as a public relations act.

“There’s nothing wrong with my hip size,” she says. “I was making a statement. If you’re not a size 0, it’s not the end of the world. It’s better to have a little more meat on your bones than nothing but skin.”

A spokesman for Elite models told Associated Press that the agency was disappointed with the ruling and considering its options. Elite had taken over Marchildon’s contract from her former agency and argued that it never had a written agreement with her.

Looking back, Marchildon realizes how the world of high-fashion models affected her thinking: “You get used to hearing, ‘You’re too fat.’ It really does something to you. But I’m over it now.”

And her hip size? “I have no idea,” she says with a laugh. “Whatever it is, it’s fine.”

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